The Ten Unskillful Behaviors: Ending Life
I used to have a friend who liked to consider scenarios in which killing another person would be justified. She could really get me wound up on the topic, not so much because I disagreed with her that there could be a justification for taking a life, but rather because she was using it to argue the position that everyone would be much safer if we all carried guns.
One of the scenarios that she proposed as a thought experiment is this: you’re on an airplane. It’s going down. There’s one parachute. There are two people. The parachute won’t work for two people—if one person doesn’t take it, both will die. You have a gun. The other person has the parachute. Do you shoot the other person and take the parachute, or do you let them jump out of the plane, leaving you to die.
I mention this story now because it’s such an interesting setup for a bit of propaganda. There are a few things to notice. First, this is a movie-plot scenario. You’re not going to die this way. You’re never going to have to find out whether you’d shoot the other guy and take their parachute, because this is literally never going to come up. And yet, scenarios like this are often how we reason about the taking of life.
Think about the trolley problem. The idea is, there’s a trolley with failed brakes barreling down the tracks towards three people who are tied to the tracks. You’re standing next to a switch. On the other track, there’s a single person tied down. If you throw the switch, one person dies. If you don’t, three people die.
The underlying lesson to both of these stories is that most people are not inclined toward ending life. If either you and some other person, or just you, or just the other person are going to die, would that be enough to get you to murder someone and steal their possessions to save your own life, or no? Or if you have a chance to save three lives at the cost of one wouldn’t you? What kind of monster wouldn’t throw the switch?
The reason that these are at all interesting questions is that in fact the human tendency to rationalize behavior really does reach as far as ending other peoples’ lives. We really are in danger of making decisions that can have that outcome. And so thinking it through in advance can be quite beneficial.
One way to get people to be willing to take the lives of their fellow human beings is to convince them that they aren’t actually fellow human beings. You see this for example with racism: convince one group of people that another group aren’t really human, and suddenly it’s not murder, is it? This technique, dehumanization, has been used effectively throughout history to get soldiers or even civilians to commit mass murder. We see this in the way that soldiers were prepared to fight in Vietnam (kill the gooks). In the way that the Hutus slaughtered their Tutsi neighbors in Rwanda. In the way that so many Black men, women and even children in the United States have been killed by cops.
Those of us (and I don’t know if you, dear reader, are one) who are fortunate enough not to encounter life or death situations on a routine basis generally tend to think that we are against taking life. Those of us who do may still think that they are against taking life, but are willing to entertain exceptions. Many of them work for us, for the people. Soldiers. Police. They work for us. They see the world differently, because they have to.
So, suppose you are privileged enough to not consider being killed by someone else to be a serious risk that you need to plan for. Does that mean that you don’t need to think about this particular unskillful behavior? Are you off the hook?
Let’s consider some reasons for killing another person.
Because I want what they have (e.g., the parachute).
Because they are creating a problem, and if they were dead they would no longer be able to do so.
Because they seem to be imminently threatening my life, and killing them would remove that threat (this is the usual justification for police killings of civilians).
As a deterrent: if we kill someone who has committed a crime, others will be deterred from committing that crime.
For those who are privileged, (1) and (3) are generally excluded, but what about (2) and (4)? Of course we are never going to go out and assassinate a despotic leader. And we ourselves are not in law enforcement, and maybe oppose the death penalty. But have you never had the thought “things would be a lot simpler if someone just shot that guy?” Or “man, I hate to wish anything bad on another person, but what if he got COVID?”
I have bad news for you. These are the easy dilemmas that we face in the practice of virtue. How about some other reasons for ending a human life:
Wearing masks is inconvenient
I need to be able to drive to work
I need that product and nobody who behaves as I think they should makes it
I’m sure some of these are alien, but are we a little closer to the bone now? Perhaps like me you believe strongly in protecting others by wearing masks. Good for you, welcome to my tribe. But lots of people, and to be honest, they are people that I otherwise consider to be generally very good people, are nowhere near as careful about wearing masks as I am, to the point where they seem irresponsible to me. I understand why—I have several elderly family members who have respiratory challenges that make wearing masks really unpleasant. But still, it beats having a loved one dying. Others I think genuinely believe that it is safe to go without right now (I’m writing this at what I hope is the height of the COVID pandemic). They are putting others at risk because they don’t believe their behavior is harmful.
Driving to work? This is really understandable. We don’t have an alternative, many of us. How do we not drive to work? But driving a car puts people at risk. Every additional car on the road is a small incremental increase in the chance of someone dying in a crash or because they were walking or riding a bike and were struck by a car.
And of course the old “save the world through your buying choices” is nicely encapsulated in (3). There are products that are made that, in the process of their manufacture, bring harm to the people doing the work, or even to innocent bystanders. This harm shortens their lives. Sometimes people die in workplace accidents. Are we not responsible for taking care of them?
At this point if you’re anything like me, there’s a tendency for two reactions to occur. One is guilt. The other is rejection. Guilt: “I shouldn’t be enjoying this banana because banana plantations exploit the workers, who have poor life expectancy.” Rejection: “I can’t be responsible for this, because it’s out of my control, so I’m going to keep eating bananas and I refuse to feel guilty about it.”
Both of these reactions are entirely rational. I would argue that the second is more useful, but if you just leave it at that conclusion, you haven’t really done the practice of virtue yet. Why am I valuing the rejection over the guilt? At the core of the guilt is a recognition of responsibility, but there’s also a failure to take responsibility, which is what makes the guilt particularly bitter. I feel helpless to address the problem that is embodied in the banana I am eating, and so I address that feeling of helplessness by feeling guilty: by punishing myself.
The second reaction, rejection, is based on the same realization: I am helpless to address this problem, and so I’m not going to feel guilty about it. This is actually healthier—there’s a rejection of the act of violence toward myself that guilt represents. I refuse to punish myself for something I can’t control.
But it’s still not satisfying, because in both cases there’s a recognition that if everybody banded together and refused to accept the exploitation of the workers, which shortens their lives, things would get better for the workers. These two reactions, self-punishment and closing off of compassion, are both addressing the same problem.
To be continued: talk about the pung sumba—what to do instead.
Additional points to address:
how a posture of rejecting killing as a solution forces us to confront problems that are usually solved by killing before they get so bad that killing is the only solution.
How different our behavior is when there’s an enemy versus when there’s no enemy.
The problem of the just war.